As part of the exhibition we posted about earlier today, etcher Francois Houtin contributed a dozen engravings exploring the theme of 'Cabane De Jardinier'. Here's what Sir Roy Strong has to say about his work:"Sinister, witty, fantastic, romantic, surreal, all of these words can be applied to the garden pictures of François Houtin. These are strange and haunting horticultural visions, their hallucinatory character heightened by the artist's use of monochrome. Houtin is above all a superb technician, never more so than in the subtle cadences of his etchings. Here is an eye and a mind from which allusions seem to tumble from Arcimboldo to Dali, from Desiderio Monzu to Le Doux, from Hieronymus Bosch to Schinkel. Here too are echoes of things seen in the great garden design and festival books of the past, extravagant pavilions, bizarre fountains and a world in which nature is subjected to almost savage contortions."Well worth a browse.
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